Did I ever mention the time I found boxes of those Italian copies of EMT/Ertle historical miniatures in 1/72 scale for $1 a box of 50? I walked out of the store with a command force of 2000 (the famous Field Marshall Von Danís 1/72 division). And they had Romans and the enemies of Rome (Dancians who look just like Celts)

Did I ever mention the time I found boxes of those Italian copies of EMT/Ertle historical miniatures in 1/72 scale for $1 a box of 50? I walked out of the store with a command force of 2000 (the famous Field Marshall Von Danís 1/72 division). And they had Romans and the enemies of Rome (Dancians who look just like Celts)

If mostly extras in large squads, yes. Having them melee instead of ranged would help (they only roll to attack if in actual contact, not every time). Having them be relatively weak troops would also help, as elements leave the board the game becomes smaller.

I didn't realize you'd do initiative cards for each figure. How would it change up the game to just do a card for each unit, or each Wild Card?

Just to clarify, you do one initiative card for a group of extras (which move as a "unit"). For instance, in the Brides of Dracula sample battle on the Pinnacle homepage, Van Helsing's side has three groups consisting of five extra Hirelings. Rather than having 15 cards, each group of five gets a single card, thus three cards in total for the hirelings.

So a group of extras is a "unit" and a single wild card is a "unit."

(At least that's how I understand the rules. Maybe I've been doing it wrong this whole time).

No, you're right, I was just going on the assumption that with 100 per side, they would probably be broken into groups of 10, which translates to 10 cards per side, resulting in 20 cards dealt per initiative round, not including any wild cards._________________Lord Inar
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Gotcha, didn't catch the math at first. And you're right, 20 cards does seem like a lot.

I suppose it could work if you kept some units as "reserve" units to enter later in the battle after the skirmishers have fallen. Alternatively, you might be able to find some clever way to scale things at different points in the battle. Maybe at the beginning where everyone is mostly just marching and only the front lines are fighting, you might be able to let one card cover 20 figures or so. Later on once the fighting becomes more chaotic and you have fighting on multiple fronts, then you break it down to 10 figures per card.

I agree. Twenty cards a turn is going to net you a ton of Jokers! Now, if you're looking for a little chaos in the battle, that might be fine...

If you break the units down later in the combat, be sure to decide how you're going to handle unit cohesion. For example, do the figures have to stay within cohesion range of the others in their original grouping or do they only need to keep cohesion with those in their new "unit"? Also, can a player opt to just break down a unit to avoid a cohesion issue during a battle? (By the way, I'd personally say no, because that seems ripe for abuse. Maybe the turn before you break the unit down designate it as such so that it can't be a reactive tactic.)

It's not a crucial point, but I've found it's usually a good idea to sort those things out up front._________________John Goff

Did I ever mention the time I found boxes of those Italian copies of EMT/Ertle historical miniatures in 1/72 scale for $1 a box of 50? I walked out of the store with a command force of 2000 (the famous Field Marshall Von Danís 1/72 division). And they had Romans and the enemies of Rome (Dancians who look just like Celts)

Those are ONLY the 1/72 scale. I have another 1000 1/32 scale army men in about 15 types with accesories packed in three 18 gal tubs, a 18 cal tub of D&D min and a 18 Gal tub of Clix and maybe a tub of mixed other stuff

and a lego castle and mega castle and rocks and trees and a 8 foot table

And have never played with any of them

Oh and I forgot the golf bag of swords but that tends to scare peple away from gaming

I've tried playing games with large groups of minis. So far I've found three problems...

more squads equals more cards. Too many cards and you'll start cluttering the tabletop as well as seeing the joker every turn.

when you have 5 guys dealing 2 dice of damage each, resolving damage is manageable. Not so when you have 10 or 20, or even more.

keeping track of shaken results for individual models is difficult when you have 10-20+ models.

I've come up with house-rules that I feel would fix these problems, although I have not really playtested them yet. COnsider these:

If you have too many cards, go ahead and just leave them out: take turns moving and firing with one squad until all the squads have been moved. IF there's a lot of squads, include a token that indicates the squad has moved this turn.

reduce damage dice to the old Savage Worlds model: one die per hit + a damage bonus. That way, if 7 guys hit, you can pick up 7 dice, calculate what you need to shake/wound, and roll them all at once.

Instead of placing shaken markers on individual units, shaken tokens are associated with the squad in general. When a squad has at least one shaken token for every two members, (.ie 50% of the squad is shaken), the whole squad moves at half Pace and cannot fire weapons. A squad can elect not to fire on its turn in order to recover from its shaken status - roll one spirit die per shaken token and remove one token on a success, two on a raise.

I'd draw cards for Wild Cards or maybe similar unit groups, just to keep the card draw mechanic in there for a couple of reasons. One, it keeps a random element involved in tactical planning, which I personally enjoy. Two, without the cards, you don't have a chance at triggering Fortune & Calamity.

You can certainly cut those out to streamline play, but for me, the random factors are a big part of the "Fun!"_________________John Goff

I've just started doing some ACW skirmishing using Showdown. What I do is organize my troops along historical lines.
1 x SGT (Wild Card)
2 x 8 Man Squads
The squads are counted as Allies of the SGT and as long as they maintain cohesion and are within the 5" command radius of the SGT then they all move together on the SGT's card.